A Happy Christmas, For A Change
by 142staircases
Summary: Sirius finds the concept the concept of an unhappy Christmas pure madness and decides to do something about it.


**AN**: Christmas friendship fluff. Because we can. And we want to.

**A happy Christmas, for a change**

He was acutely aware that he was having what James and Sirius would call a "Lonely Moony Existential Crisis." It did not make anything any better.

He hated—_hated_—being left alone for too long. Being alone always made him ponder things that, as Sirius said, "should not be thought about except when applied to Snivellus." Things such as "why do I have friends?", "what do they see in me?", "I could kill them if things got out of hand," and other such silly thoughts.

He was alone now, and so these thoughts had crept out of that dark corner in the left half of his brain where he had unceremoniously shoved them last time James had come home from a long absence.

He hated that they had places to go for "long absences." Peter had gone to his mother's house for Christmas, and Sirius and James were off doing something for the Order. Normally, Lily would drop in a few times on weeks like this, but he did not have the impression she particularly wanted to be around people. It was, after all, the first anniversary of her mother's death.

As for him…he he wished desperately that he had some company. But Dumbledore hadn't called an Order meeting in ages, he, Remus, had just been sacked because his employer had gotten paranoid about werewolves after a Greyback attack on one of his close family friends and Lily was off in what James would call "Quiet and Pensive Lily Land."

In short, Remus had only gotten out of his bed to eat and use the bathroom in the past seven days.

*

Of course, what Remus didn't know was that Lily had spent the entire week in the apartment he shared with James. She had spent it in very much the same manner as he had, curled up in the bed she so often shared with her boyfriend and letting her misery have at her.

She missed her mother quite terribly. Her mother, who had always loved Christmas, who had always been the most festive person when December arrived, had somehow managed to ruin Christmas forever because she had died about a year before.

Stupid cancer. Stupid Christmas.

She missed Remus, even though she knew he was just down the hall. She missed Alice, who—last she had heard—was happily ensconced in her life as the new Mrs. Longbottom (much to Augusta's dismay). She missed Peter, even though she could floo him any time. She missed Mary, who was in Wales, doing something for the Order with Mad-Eye. She missed Sirius, even though she could look over at her dresser and see a picture of the two of them standing together and laughing. She missed James, who she could smell in the sheets and pillows of the bed. But most of all, she missed her mother. She missed the smell of gingerbread and the sounds of Christmas carols being played on her parents' old phonograph.

*

"What are the chances," whispered Sirius as they walked through the door of the apartment, "that Moony is being a pitiful lout who can't face reality at the moment?"

"Very high, I would say, judging by the state of the dishes of the dishes in the sink," sighed James, kicking off his shoes and opening the door to his room. He saw Lily, fast asleep.

"Padfoot," he hissed, "Lily's here." He closed the door quietly and scurried back into the living room. There was no need, really. It wasn't as though she would wake up. She was the heaviest sleeper he knew.

"So? Isn't she always?"

"Not usually when we are away she isn't."

"She probably was keeping Moony company."

"Then why are they both asleep at eleven o'clock?"

"Point… Oh god, they are both being angsty, aren't they."

"What?"

"They have probably been here, all week, not talking to one another and wallowing in their own miserable states."

"That's pretty rich, coming from the king of angst himself. And it's not as though Lily doesn't have a—"

"I know she has a reason to be angsty. I'm not an idiot. I'm simply voicing my concern that they have been cooped up here wallowing for the past week."

But James was not particularly in the mood to deal with Sirius at the moment. He was very fond his best mate, but, after having spent an entire week in his company, desired little more than a little time to himself—something that curling up around his girlfriend's sleeping form offered in spades.

It was Christmas Eve, he had missed Lily, he missed his own, dear, departed parents and he did not feel particularly like catering to Sirius' obsessive need to always feel wanted.

"Goodnight, Sirius," he said. He returned to his bedroom and closed the door. He removed the robes he had worn all week and threw them onto the laundry pile in the corner of the room. Then, he slipped into bed next to Lily and placed an arm around her.

*

"Well, goodnight," grumbled Sirius. He threw himself onto the couch.

He didn't feel like going back to his empty apartment. It was always like this after extended Order missions with James. He missed the two of them falling asleep (or one of them falling asleep while the other kept watch) while talking.

It wasn't Christmas if there wasn't someone who was feeling down and out. First year, Peter was homesick. Second year, Moony was recovering from a bad bout of wolf transformations. Third year, James was not talking to him. Forth year, there had been a series of Death Eater attacks on muggle carolers. Fifth year, Snape had managed to best them (he shuddered at the memory) in a Snow War. Sixth year, he had left his family. Last year, Lily's mother had just died.

So, this must make it the most pure of all Christmases: All of them were down and out.

What a way to spend a holiday. Everyone in their corner, upset about something. Everyone isolating themselves from each other.

Sirius suddenly sat up straight.

It was madness.

Pure, unadulterated madness.

And he would _not_ stand for it any longer.

He reached for his wand, not entirely sure what he intended to do but sure that it would be a holly, jolly Christmas for all.

*

He woke up and wondered why he had bothered to do so. Sure, it was Christmas day. Fantastic. It wasn't as though he had anyone to celebrate it with.

He debated going back to sleep, but in the end, he decided he should get up and—at the very least—have a look at the newspaper to see if Voldemort had decided to add himself to Santa's "naughty" list.

He stumbled out of bed and towards the kitchen. Once there, he made himself a mug of coffee and then went into the living room to find the paper.

He walked through the door and blinked once, twice, three times.

It looked like some kind of…well…he felt rather as though he had stepped into the land of Christmas.

There was the traditional pine tree, decorated with Gryffindor scarves and bearing a bright gold star on the top. Tinsel of silver and gold was draped over every surface. Icicles were glittering in the window. Stockings were dangling haphazardly off the corners of tables and chairs and there were at least three nativity scenes scattered throughout the room.

Asleep on the couch, in a Santa outfit and covered in Gryffindor scarves for warmth, was Sirius.

"Padfoot?" said Remus.

"Humglehamr," replied Sirius, still dormant.

"Sirius?" Remus tried.

"Ahubaduha."

"Sirius Orion Black?"

Sirius sat bolt-upright and looked around fervently. He saw Remus and glared at him. "How many times have I told you not to refer to me by my full name, Moony?" he demanded.

"Well, you weren't responding otherwise."

"But still, there are some things you just shouldn't have to resort to. I would prefer you hitting me over the head with a frying pan to—"

"Did you do all this?"

"What? You mean the decorations?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I did."

There was a pause.

"It's incredible."

"Thanks," said Sirius sheepishly. While he had envisaged appreciation for his midnight actions, he hadn't actually expected it to be so heartfelt, and the look on Remus Lupin's tired, unshaven face was enough to make him realize that sometimes, a happy Christmas can turn around anyone's bad mood.

While he was pondering this, Remus had turned around and left.

"Hey!" he called, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to shower, then to clean up the kitchen, and then to make some sort of festive breakfast."

*

It was the smell of cinnamon that woke Lily more than anything else. It took her a moment to realize that James was asleep next to her—which made her smile happily to herself—and then another moment to realize it was Christmas morning and Remus must be cooking cinnamony deliciousness.

She untangled herself from James (careful to put her pillow where she had just been) and quietly slipped out of the bedroom.

She looked around the room. It was a mixture of the Gryffindor common room in December and what she imagined the north pole's Christmas decorations to look like. Red, gold, silver, sparkles and, she noted garlands spelling out the words "Happy Christmas" on the ceiling, draped with mistletoe.

"Remus?" she called.

"Lily?" As she had predicted, his voice sailed in from the kitchen.

"This is incredible, Remus," she said, her voice breathy.

"I didn't do it."

"What?"

"I didn't do it?"

"Who did then?"

"Ho ho ho," came another voice, "And have you been a good girl this year, Lily Evans?" demanded Sirius, dressed as Santa.

"Lord, I hope so," she grinned.

"Well then, have a seat and have some of Moony's cinnamony deliciousness."

"I…why?" she asked Sirius, tears in her eyes. Her dad had always dressed up as Santa on Christmas morning, to drag her and her sister out of bed—at least, until Petunia had insisted she was far too old to be subjected to such nonsense.

"Because it's Christmas, damn it, and only Voldemort has the right to be so grinchy that he can take away Christmas from us and he is not here, so…"

"You've read _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_?" demanded Lily, slightly incredulously.

"There was nothing to read in that shack we were camped out in except for a series of books by this Seuss character, and, frankly, I think St. Mungo's has a bed for him. He seems quite disturbed to—"

But before he could finish his sentence, Lily had thrown her arms around him, given him a firm kiss on the cheek and gone into the kitchen to eat.

*

James opened his eyes and heard laughter. It wasn't the forced laughter of those trying to be festive when they would prefer not to be. It was the kind of laughter that comes straight from the diaphragm when one cannot help but find something humorous.

He wondered mildly what was so funny and climbed out of bed.

He found out rather quickly.

Sirius was sitting on the couch in his now unrecognizable living room, dressed as Santa Claus and endeavoring to string popcorn without magic. A task that would have been easy for most people had resulted in popcorn fragments everywhere, a rather frustrated Sirius and two hysterical people who were laughing harder than he would have thought possible, given the triviality of the situation.

"Happy Christmas, darling," Lily said, skipping over and kissing his cheek.

"What is going on?" he asked, looking around the room, trying to take note of the possible damages that the room could have suffered.

"Sirius is trying to complete his decorations. He realized he forgot popcorn strings and paper chains. Moony and I are working on the paper chains and he is—" she began laughing again and gestured over to Sirius.

"I don't know what's so funny," growled Sirius.

"I don't either," said James, "Want help?"

"I've got it. It's fine."

"You are surrounded by popcorn shavings."

Sirius rolled his eyes and handed him the thread and the bowl of popcorn.

"Thanks, mate."

Sirius looked at James and they both understood that James' "Thanks" had meant more than just "thank you for handing over the popcorn."

"Anytime," said Sirius, with a half-smile.


End file.
